The Past is Another Realm
by ariel2me
Summary: A collection of drabbles inspired by The World of Ice and Fire.


_A/N: Each drabble is a stand-alone thing, I'm just not putting them into separate chapters because they're short._

**The Unnamed Baratheon (Lyonel Baratheon's daughter)**

When the singers sang songs and the storytellers told tales about the beloved Prince of Dragonflies and his Jenny of Oldstones, they neglected to mention the name of the woman he had spurned, humiliated and dishonored, all for the sake of '_true love_.'

When the maesters and archmaesters wrote of that debacle of broken betrothal and broken promises in their ponderous tomes – turning up their noses at the singers and storytellers with their foolish notions of _love _and _romance_ – they _still_ neglected to mention her name, according her the courtesy of being nothing more than '_a daughter of House Baratheon_,' or '_Lord Lyonel's daughter_.'

The Prince of Dragonflies' spurned woman, the Laughing Storm's pitiful daughter; that was all she was to them, in the end. First it was the story of Duncan Targaryen, his great love for Jenny of Oldstones, and the crown he renounced for the sake of that love. Then it became the story of Lyonel Baratheon, his wounded pride, and the rebellion sparked by that pride.

Later it morphed into the story of Ormund Baratheon, and his marriage to the Targaryen princess he was given to wed to soothe his father's wounded pride and regain his House's fallen honor. Later still, it was the story of the son and grandsons that came of that Baratheon-Targaryen union, one of whom would one day depose the last Targaryen king from the Iron Throne.

And all the while_ her _story remained untold, unknown, lost to history and legends alike, this unnamed Baratheon who had a name after all, who shared a name with the Storm Queen, and whose angry defiance and wrathful indignation – not tears, not pitiful weeping – spurred the Laughing Storm to declare himself the Storm King, like their ancestors of old.

* * *

><p><strong>Queen You Shall Be, Until (Argella Durrandon)<strong>

Queen you shall be, when they tell you that your father perished with a sword in his hand and a curse on his lips, defiant to his very last breath.

Queen you shall be, when you smother your tears, entomb your grief, repel your doubt, with nothing more potent than the proud resolve to be defiant to _your_ very last breath.

Queen you shall be, when you take up your rightful inheritance and declare yourself to be what you already are.

Queen you shall be, when you order the gates to the castle to be barred; when you command your men to keep the enemy out at all cost.

Queen you shall be, when the dragon not-queen flies into your castle atop her fiery beast, demanding submission on bended knee.

Queen you shall be, when you refuse her terms; when you proclaim the resolve of the defenders of your castle to die to the last man and last woman standing; when you declare that her husband, her brother, the dragon not-king, is welcome to be king of bones, blood and ashes.

Queen you shall be, until the hearts of your own men waver at the thought of being reduced to bones and ashes; when their courage falter at the notion of their life-blood soiling the grounds of the castle, of their flesh cooked and burned to submission.

Queen you shall be, until your own men deceive and betray you that very same night, only hours after the dragon not-queen flew away from the aborted parley.

Queen you shall be, until your own men deliver you bruised and battered, naked, chained and gagged, to the feet of the beast that slayed your father.

Queen you shall be, until the beast that slayed your father reveals himself to be a man, merely a man, less of a monster than those who betrayed you.

* * *

><p><strong>For the prompt: Argella's thoughts and feelings during the time Orys was a captive in Dorne.<strong>

"He is the king. I fight his war."

"He is _your_ king."

"Aegon is more than just my king. He is -"

"Your brother?"

"- the man who made me who I am today. Everything that I am, everything that I have, I owe to him. This land, this castle, my title, my position." _This life. This marriage. You. You, and the sons we have made together. How could I deny Aegon anything, after all that?_ "Aegon raised me up beyond anything I thought possible."

"You raised yourself up by your own deeds. And this war is futile, mark my word. Aegon will never conquer Dorne. The Dornish people will not betray their ruler. They are not craven the way the men of my garrison were craven. No one will deliver The Yellow Toad to your feet, bound, gagged and defeated."

Orys left for battle, just like her father did. She had tried, futilely, to convince her father to stay. _The castle will protect us_. _The walls of_ _Storm's End have never been breached_.

The courage of men could easily be breached, though. How well Argella knew that. Storm's End still stood, un-breached, impervious to anything and everything, it seemed. Yet here she sat, in the great hall where her father once ruled as king and where she used to sit by his side, his rightful heir, queen-in-waiting. Here she sat, holding court and dispensing justice in her husband's name, during her husband's absence, a mere Lady of Storm's End, a queen no more.

The man who spoke next introduced himself as a messenger carrying an urgent missive from "the king." _Which king?_ Argella almost asked, before she remembered that there was only one king now. One king, and one realm. Except for Dorne, still stubborn, still unconquered, where Orys was currently slogging through the Boneway with his men.

Or so Argella thought. The letter from Aegon told a different story. She read it silently, her face betraying nothing. Only after she had returned to her bedchamber did she dare to speak the words aloud, alone in that empty room.

_Taken captive_. Orys Baratheon, slayer of the last Storm King, conqueror of the Stormlands, Aegon Targaryen's fiercest warrior and most trusted battle commander, taken captive by Walter Wyl. It did not seem _possible_. It almost beggared belief. If the letter had brought the news of his death in battle, she would have found that much less shocking.

_Taken captive_. He was a prisoner, as she was once a prisoner, when her own men betrayed her. Had _his_ men betrayed him?

Was he put in chains, like she was?

Was he bound and gagged, like she was?

_You should be rejoicing, Argella. This is my vengeance. He deserves this. He deserves even more than merely being taken captive._

_No! He is the father of my sons. He is the father of your grandsons._

Had his captors stripped him naked, to humiliate him, to expose him to the elements and to the scorn of every eyes watching, like _her_ captors did?

_This is our vengeance, daughter. For everything he has taken from us, for everything he has stolen from us. He took our land, our castle –_

_He won them in battle._

_He stole our sigil, even our words._

_He did that to honor you! To honor the fallen king and his courage, the king who died with a sword in his hand and a curse on his lips. He spoke to me of your courage, of your last moments, of your last words, of your last breath. You called out my name, he told me that. He committed everything to memory, for my sake. _

_He took our sigil and our words to honor me? Do not make me laugh with scorn. Life is not a song, child. Nor is it a merry tale to warm the hearts. Have you grown so soft-hearted, so weak? This is our fury unleashed, Argella. Rejoice, in his destruction, for it is the seed of our restoration. Who will rule the Stormlands while he languishes in captivity? Your eldest son, his heir, is not yet three. Who will rule in the meantime? Who will rule if Orys di-_

_Enough!_

Her father was long dead. It was not his ghost haunting her, or his words roaming in her head, or his thoughts warring with her own. Hers, all hers; they were all hers, and no one else's. It would be weak not to admit that, and she was not _weak_, even in her defeat.

The scars on her wrists and ankles where the chains had strangled her flesh were still there; faint, but still visible. Orys had removed those chains himself, with his own hands - the hands that were now strangled with chains themselves, very probably. With those same hands, he had removed his own cloak and wrapped it around Argella, his eyes staring only at her eyes, not at her naked flesh.

_He is the man I married._

_He is the man who fathered my sons._

_He is the man who was kind when he could have so easily been cruel_. No, that was too easy, too simpleminded, like the stuff of mawkish songs and maudlin tales fit only for the weak, the soft-headed, the soft-hearted. And she, Argella Durrandon, was none of those things.

And yet, it was the thought of his kindness that finally,_ finally_, made her weep for her husband, for the first time.

* * *

><p><strong>Usury (Orys Baratheon, Lord Wyl of Wyl and Walter Wyl)<strong>

"The king paid you the ransom worth our weight in gold. Our weight while we were still whole, before you chopped off our sword hands. You must return those hands you stole from my men and from myself, whatever state they might be in," Orys demanded.

Lord Wyl stared at Orys with disbelief, before laughing uproariously. "Should I put those hands in a box for you, Lord Baratheon? Argilac Durrandon - no, forgive me, your _good-father_ - returned the chopped hands of the envoy sent to propose the match between yourself and his daughter in a box carved with prancing stags and the Durrandon words, I heard. _Ours is the Fury_. So very apt, I have always thought."

"You can put those hands in a sack of old cloth if you wish, but you _must _return them. King Aegon has paid for _all_ of us, not just parts of us."

"And what will you do, the once mighty and proud Lord Baratheon, with a sack full of rotting, reeking, decaying hands? There is not a single maester in all the Seven Kingdoms with the skill or the power to magically reattach those limbs."

"What I wish to do with those hands is not your concern. King Aegon has paid the ransom, and now you must return everything you took. _Everything_, including our sword hands."

"I think not. The sight of those rotting hands dangling in my courtyard like strings of onions gives me pleasure and untold satisfaction. Your king, his men and his dragons have brought untold misery to Dorne and to the Dornish people. What I have done is _nothing_, by comparison. What have I taken from you, after all? I have taken from you the ability to take arms against Dorne. Only that. I have not taken your life."

_You already stole three years of my life, spent in captivity in your dark dungeon._

_And stealing a man's sword hand is no different than stealing the rest of his life._

"Then you must return to the king the weight of gold corresponding to the weight of our sword hands. That is only _just_," Orys persisted.

Lord Wyl laughed even louder. "I will keep _all_ the gold, and all the rotting hands too. Call it usury, if you wish. You should be grateful that I do not charge as high an interest as the banks."

_Usury_.

Lord Wyl of Wyl had forgotten that _Ours is the Fury_ was now the Baratheon's words, but Orys Baratheon would never forget that his captor had charged a heavy interest.

"My father took only your sword hand. Spare me my other limbs," Walter Wyl would plead, thirty years later, after he was taken captive and delivered into Orys' hand, after Orys had hacked off his sword hand.

"Call it usury," Orys replied, before hacking off Walter Wyl's other hand, and his two feet besides.

* * *

><p><strong>The Broken King and His Queen (Aegon III and Jaehaera Targaryen)<strong>

_Did she jump, or was she pushed?_

This child who never wept, never smiled, never laughed, who grew "_strange and unlike other children_," as they say. Did she feel, did she despair, did she grieve? None could tell, her boy-king husband least of all.

_Your father fed my mother to the dragon_, _while I stood watching_, he never said to her, locked in his own misery, in his own bitterness.

_Your father ordered men to murder my twin brother, while my mother stood watching_, she never said to him, locked in her own silent world.

Did she despair enough to want to end her life, like her mother did?

This he knew – that what was not shown, not paraded, not revealed to the greedy watchful eyes of the world could still be deeply felt, deeply sensed, deeply _lived_. They saw only his sullenness, his disinterest, his apathy; for he took great care to hide the rest, to conceal the fact that his first thought when told of the death of his queen had been, _you should have come to me. We could have held hands and jumped, together._

Just because she never wept, it did not mean that she never despaired.

_Did she jump, or was she pushed?_

This queen given to the safekeeping of the bastard brother of his Hand. The Hand who wanted to make a new queen of his own daughter.

There could be no new queen, of course, while the old one still lived. Particularly if the old one was a child likely to live many, many more years.

Well, there was his answer to the question, plain and clear as day.

_Did she jump, or was she pushed?_

She jumped. He lived with that lie, made a great show of believing it, of accepting it, for he _was_ king, and distressingly, he knew that he must live after all, despite his own deepest wish. And a boy-king who wanted to avoid being pushed to his own death must pretend that his little queen jumped to her own death of her own accord, without anyone giving her a helping hand.

But he took some satisfaction in never, ever, _ever,_ making the daughter of that murderous Hand his new queen.

* * *

><p><strong>The King Who Could Not Bear to be Touched (Aegon IIIDaenaera Velaryon)**

"Will the king be coming to my bedchamber tonight?"

"No, my queen."

"Would His Grace rather … well, would he rather than I go to him? To his bedchamber, I mean."

"His Grace has not asked for your presence in his bedchamber."

"Has the king been told?"

"Told of what, Your Grace?"

"Has my husband been told that my moonblood has come? That … that I am now old enough to lie with him?"

"The Grand Maester informed the king of your changed condition the morning after your moonblood came for the first time."

"My _changed condition_?"

"That you are now a woman flowered, mature enough to bear His Grace's children."

"And what did the king say, when he was told this?"

"He nodded."

"He nodded? And that was all? He did not say any words, hearing this news?"

"No, he did not."

"That was almost half a year ago. My moonblood has come with regularity since then."

"His Grace is aware of that, Your Grace."

"He is? How could he, when he has never once asked me … _oh_. _Of course_. My sheets are inspected every morning."

"His Grace is anxious to be kept informed about the state of your health and your well-being, my queen."

"But not anxious enough to ask me in person, I take it?"

"His Grace is not a man of many words."

"My cousin tells me that I must do my duty. That I must lie with the king to give him an heir."

"Lord Alyn is a wise man."

"How can I lie with the king if he does not come to me? And he does not call for me to go to his bed."

"You must wait, my queen. You must wait until His Grace calls for you."

"And when will that be?"

"I do not know, my queen."

"He flinches so, when my hand brushes against his at the dinner table."

"His Grace dislikes to be touched by _anyone_. It is not meant as an insult to you, Your Grace."

"But I am his queen. His wife! If I am to lie with him, if I am to make a child with him, surely … surely that will involve a lot more than mere touching of hands. And if he could not bear even that, how will he … how will he _ever_ …"

"Put a child in you? The king will do his duty, my queen. When the time comes."

"Even if it hurts him?"

"It … it is more common for the first time to hurt for the lady in question, not the man."

"I am not ignorant of the details. My cousin has taken great care to ensure that I have been properly instructed on how to do my duty in the king's bed. But a man who could not bear even the touch of his wife's hand, how will such a man -"

"As I said, the king knows his duty."

"You said before that he will do his duty. And now you are saying that he _knows_ his duty. So which is it? There is a difference between knowing, and actually doing."

"His Grace knows his duty, and he will do his duty."

"And how will _I_ bear it, to see my husband in such a state? To watch him flinch, perhaps even recoil, while he's trying to '_do his duty?_' How could I take any pleasure in it, if it is obvious that he takes none? Am I so unpleasing to his eyes? Do I make for such a disgusting sight?"

"Not at all, Your Grace. Your beauty is renown throughout the realm."

"What use is that, if I could not even make my husband come to my bed?"

* * *

><p><strong>Lady Larra and Her Lost Prince (Larra RogareViserys II Targaryen)**

Look at her. Just_ look _at her. Her grace, her poise, her unshaken composure, her dignity. And yes, her unsurpassed beauty. Viserys marvels still at his good fortune, that this woman – not a girl, not a child like his brother's wife – this_woman_, with everything that the word implies, is his wife. That he, a callow youth seven years her inferior, truly _is_ her husband.

Here she is, murmuring words of comfort and reassurance to her ladies-in-waiting. And there she goes, darting to the queen's side to soothe that anxious girl-child with tales of romance and chivalry. Little Queen Daenaera loves the story of lost Prince Viserys and Lady Larra of Lys most of all. "Tell me again, sister," she would say, for that is what she has taken to calling her good-sister, "tell me again how you and Viserys found each other, and saved one another."

In the middle of the telling, Larra's eyes accidentally met her husband's own, and Viserys sees the heavy toll that seemingly effortless poise and composure is actually taking on her. There is a look in her eyes, and a certain expression on her face, glimpsed only during her rare, unguarded moments, that drives Viserys wild with dismay and trepidation.

_Have I not made you as happy as you have made me?_

Eyebrow raised, a sign understood between husband and wife, Larra asks, silently, _what news, husband?_

_No news as yet, my love_, Viserys replies, equally silently, with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. No news about the fate of her brothers, or about her own arrest, or when, if ever, the men besieging the castle will finally leave.

Her face betraying nothing, Larra turns her attention back to Daenaera, whose head is now leaning on Larra's shoulder.

"Poor child," Larra says about the queen, when she returns to her husband's side. "She is afraid that those men gathered outside will break down the doors and push us all out the window to our death." Lowering her voice, Larra whispers, "Daenaera has been having nightmares about Queen Jaehaera's body impaled on the spikes."

Jaehaera was already dead by the time Viserys returned from Lys. Aegon spoke of her very rarely, if ever, but it was _her_ name he invoked when he refused entry to the men dispatched by Marston Waters to seize Larra. "I will not allow it! Not again. Not this time. One Hand was given charge of Queen Jaehaera and he plotted to have her killed, to have my wife _murdered_. And now another Hand wishes to arrest my brother's wife on false, made-up charges. Will this Hand fake a suicide too, for Lady Larra? I might be a boy-king at the mercy of my regents in their eyes, but I am still king for all that."

Gazing at the king standing alone, forlornly, at a distance from his wife, at a distance from everyone, it seems, Larra says, "All this for one woman. If he allows me to be arrested, it will be over for everyone else."

_No_, Viserys insists, _my brother will never do that_.

"I must make a show of force," Aegon had said earlier, rebuffing Viserys' earnest and heartfelt attempt to thank his brother, to show his gratitude. "This has naught to do with you, or Larra, or even the Rogare. These high and mighty regents who believe they could rule me so easily must be made to see that the time for that has long since passed."

There is _that_, true, and no one is happier than the king's own brother to see the king so emboldened, so determined. And yet there is guilt too, Viserys knows. The guilt of an older brother who flew away atop his dragon, leaving the little brother on his own, desperately clutching his un-hatched dragon egg. The guilt of an older brother who escaped, leaving behind his little brother to uncertain fate.

Viserys could say to his brother, "_I never blamed you, or despised you for it. You were only a boy scarcely older than I was, a boy who was as terrified as I had been,_" again and again and again, until he is blue in the face, but it will not change how Aegon feels in the slightest.

"I abandoned my brother once. I will not do that again," Aegon tells Larra.

"I am not your brother, Your Grace. I am his wife. You can let those men arrest me in good conscience, if that is your wish."

"You are his _life_. How could I?"

* * *

><p><strong>The <strong>**_Almost, _****But Not Quite****_,_**** Lady of Casterly Rock (Ellyn Reyne)**

"_and who are you, the proud Ellyn said, that I must bow so low?"_

Oh but she was _furious_! Fate had ill-served her time and time again, had cheated her twice over – no, thrice, now – each time stealing from Ellyn Reyne her rightful due, turning all her hard work into _dust_, into _ashes_.

Did they think it was _easy_, doing what needed to be done? _She_ never had any such illusion, Lady Ellyn of House Reyne, sister to the Red Lion, widow to Ser Tion Lannister (formerly heir to Casterly Rock, currently heir to nothing at all.)

He _struck_ her. How_ dare_ he? "I should have done that long ago," her good-father bellowed. "I should have done that the first time you climbed into his bed and bewitched my poor Tion into breaking his betrothal with Lord Rowan's daughter."

"Your son did not need much convincing, if I recall, much less any bewitching." The promise of her favor and merely the subtle hints of the delights and pleasures she would rain on him once they were married was enough to persuade Tion. She had not even needed to spread her legs, or to kiss him in places more indiscreet than his mouth, to convince him to set aside his betrothal and to wed _her_ instead.

But then Tion was _weak_, weak-willed and pathetic, so very different from his golden twin. His _dead_ golden twin. Even as Ellyn was rejoicing in her success at the time, she was already despising Tion for not being even _half_ the man Tywald had been.

Tywald she had _loved_. Tywald she had wanted to wed for his own sake almost as much as for the sake of being the Lady of Casterly Rock. But Tywald the elder twin had died in battle alongside her father, and Ellyn had done what needed to be done.

Did they think it was _easy_, doing what needed to be done?

"Are my sons so interchangeable to you? Tywald, Tion and Tytos, all one and the same, as long as he still lives and will inherit Casterly Rock?"

It was _not_ her fault that Tywald had died before their long betrothal had been sealed with marriage. It was _not_ her fault that Tion had died only a year after their wedding. It was _not_ her fault that Tion had the _temerity _to perish before his father, before he was Lord of Casterly Rock, before she was the Lady of Casterly Rock, before his seeds could take hold inside her, before she could give birth to the next heir to Casterly Rock.

And it was _most_ definitely, absolutely, _not_ her fault that Tytos Lannister, third son of Gerold Lannister, and current heir to Casterly Rock, proved to be a sniveling, whimpering weakling even _more_ pathetic than his brother Tion had been.

He _wept_. Loudly and copiously, in Ellyn's bed. Wept with regret and remorse about how much he had wronged his wife, Tytos claimed.

_May the gods spare me from the regrets of men_, Ellyn cursed. _And from their appalling tears. _Tywald would never have wept. Her brothers had never wept.

It was _not_ regret, she knew that well enough. It was shame - shame and humiliation about his flaccid manhood, limp, floppy and _useless _- that had driven Tytos running and weeping from Ellyn's bed into his wife's embrace, "confessing" everything purportedly, but in truth putting almost all of the blame on his good-sister, and reserving very little for himself.

And that simpering Jeyne Marbrand had not waited long to brandish her claws, had paused only very briefly to wipe her husband's tears before going straight to her good-father to tell all.

"Is nothing sacred to you? Not a betrothal, not even the vows of marriage?" Gerold Lannister was still droning _on_ and _on_ and _on_.

"Your son is _weak_," Ellyn replied. "Too eager to please everyone, too afraid to offend anyone. And you know this as well as I do. When you are gone, Tytos will need a pair of strong hands to push him, to force him to be the strong lord that Casterly Rock deserves. That Casterly Rock _needs_. He is a lion whose claws need constant sharpening. And I am the only woman equal to that task."

"His own wife is not equal to that task, I suppose?"

"Jeyne loves her husband. And that makes her _useless_ in that regard."

"Jeyne is his wife! They are married in the eyes of gods and men. And she has not done any wrong to her husband, or to our House."

"Wives can be set aside. There are many precedents, as you well know. You must think of the good of Casterly Rock and the Westerlands, and not allow softer feelings and sentiments to blind you to what needs to be done."

Gerold laughed, bitterly. "Am I supposed to believe that your intentions are entirely selfless? _It is all for the good of Casterly Rock_," Gerold mocked. "Do you take me for a fool?" He asked, scoffing.

"I will be the Lady that Casterly Rock deserves. The Lady that Casterly Rock _needs_."

And she deserved it, Ellyn thought. She _deserved_ to be the Lady of Casterly Rock. She had earned it, worked and strived and struggled for it for so long, paid for it in more ways than she could count.

This old _fool_ standing in front of her would never understand that.

"You will never be the Lady of Casterly Rock, not even after I'm long dead and rotting in my grave," Gerold Lannister barked. "You will wed old Walderan Tarbeck, retire to his crumbling and disintegrating castle, and never set foot in Casterly Rock again. That is my command." Disconcerted, and perhaps even disappointed by her lack of tears, he repeated, "That is my command!"

Did the old fool think it was _easy_, doing what needed to be done?

Ellyn Reynealways did what needed to be done. _Always_. She vowed, vowed that the Lannisters would soon discover to their peril and to their great detriment that the Lady Ellyn of House Reyne could not be declawed so easily, that she would never forgive or forget, and that in forcing her to become Lady Tarbeck and denying her Casterly Rock, they had sown the seed of their own destruction.

* * *

><p><strong>The Queen Who Proposed (Sharra Arryn)<strong>

Would that she were ten years younger, or more. Would that she were still the great beauty that she once was – the Flower of the Mountain, the fairest maiden in all the Seven Kingdoms. Aegon Targaryen would not have found it so easy to ignore her offer of marriage then.

"The Lord of Dragonstone has not seen fit to reply to my proposed marriage alliance," Queen Sharra announced, to the assembled lords of the Vale. "A faded flower of the mountain ten years his elder is not comely enough to tempt the Lord of Dragonstone, it seems."

_I rule as a regent for my young son - Ronnel Arryn, King of the Mountain and Vale - since the death of my husband_, Sharra had written in her letter to Aegon Targaryen. _I have been content to remain a widow for these many years, but for the sake of bringing about a peaceful alliance between our kingdom and yours, I hereby offer my hand to you in marriage, and friendship._

Her letter had received no reply from Dragonstone. And to think that she had wasted _hours_ sitting for that portrait! Hours that could have been better spent planning more ways to fortify the defences of the Vale. What had Aegon done with her portrait? Feed it to his dragon? Show it to his sister-wives so they could laugh at Queen Regent Sharra Arryn of the Vale, together?

_Were it not for my sons, and my people, I would rather die that wed one such as yourself. _She had not written this in the letter, of course; so _that_ could not account for the deafening silence coming from Aegon Targaryen.

Lord Corbray coughed, before saying, carefully, "The Storm King offered the Lord of Dragonstone his daughter's hand in marriage - a fair and comely maiden, this Argella Durrandon – and Aegon refused him as well. He offered his bastard brother Orys Baratheon to King Argilac instead. It seems that Aegon Targaryen has no interest in taking another wife, whoever the woman may be."

"A man already possessed of two wives with fiery dragons of their own would be wise to tread very carefully," Lord Redfort mused. "His wives might be sorely tempted to feed him to their dragons were he to take another wife."

They might be equally tempted to feed the new wife to their dragons, Sharra thought. Her thought then turned to the one condition she had stated in her letter to Aegon. Could _that _have been the real problem? The Lord of Dragonstone was still childless and heirless - his sister-wives not having seen fit to give him any children as yet – but he, and his wives, might still balk at naming Sharra's son Ronnel as his heir.

But her son was king! She could not have traded away his birthright for anything less.

"A refusal accompanied by a counter-offer is one thing, but to have received no reply at all, to be ignored completely, that is _far_ more insulting," Lord Royce muttered darkly, replying to Lord Corbray and paying not the slightest bit of attention to Lord Redfort's remark.

"It is done," Queen Sharra declared, in a voice that brooked no argument. "We must be prepared for an attack. To indulge our wounded pride and affronted honor in these times will do nothing to strengthen our defences or to protect our people."

* * *

><p><strong>For the prompt: Aerea Targaryen and her thoughts after she was no longer heir to the throne<strong>

He was _evil_, her great-uncle, her stepfather. Everyone said so. A bad, bad man like the monsters in the stories, a cruel man who murdered his brother to gain a throne, who stole his nephew's crown, his nephew's wife.

His nephew's _daughter_.

He sat Aerea on the Iron Throne and said, grinning, "You are like a daughter to me now. You are my heir, sweetling. This throne will be yours, someday."

(Lies, all lies. Everyone said so. He made Aerea his heir to spite her uncle Jaehaerys. But he never meant to make her queen at all. He forced himself on Mother and his other wives night after night, desperate to make a son of his own blood to put on the throne. The gods knew he was a monster, Mother said, so they gave him only monsters, not sons, not even daughters.)

"I am not your daughter," she told him. "I am not your blood." Her father was_ good_. Her father was _brave_, like the knights in the stories. Her father was _not_ a monster. She did not want to be the daughter of a monster.

The grin vanished from his face. Furious, he snatched her hand, swiping her palm on the sharp, jagged edge of the throne. She cried out in pain, in fear. He swiped _his_ palm too, to add to the other wounds his precious, coveted throne had already inflicted on him.

He laughed. "You are my blood now," he declared, forcing her palm to meet his, forcing their blood to mingle, to blend. Her little feet kicked his bloodied hands. Now it was _his_ turn to cry out in pain. But there was no fear in him, only rage, only wrath; at her, at the gods, at the whole world, for thwarting his will.

She ran.

Later, she ran again, with her mother and her twin sister. The monster died sitting on the throne. By his own hand, some said, too cowardly to face defeat. The Iron Throne itself slayed him, others whispered, not willing to suffer a monster to sit on it.

Uncle Jaehaerys sat on the throne, and he was_ good_. He was _not_ a monster, like the previous king. He was a good king. Everyone said so.

_My father was good_, Aerea said. _My father was not a monster. My father would have been a good king too._

No one remembered her father. No one remembered that her father was supposed to be king. No one remembered her father had died trying to save the realm from the monster.

She was Father's heir, wasn't she?

_Men would not fight a war to put a little girl on the throne_, Mother said.

_Not even against the monster?_

_No._

_What about a little boy? What if I had a brother? Would they have fought a war to put my brother on the throne?_

_You have no brother. Your uncle Jaehaerys is a good king. And he is not the monster. Anything is better than the monster._

Uncle Jaehaerys named his eldest son Aemon as his heir.

_Aerea and Aemon_, Mother hinted. If not a ruling queen – which was never going to happen, since the monster _lied, lied, lied_ – at least a queen consort for Aerea. For the girl who was once named and declared to be heir to the throne in front of the whole realm, even if it was only the monster playing his cruel games.

_I owe a debt of gratitude to the Baratheons_, Uncle Jaehaerys said, refusing.

Uncle Jaehaerys married one son to a Baratheon, another son to his own daughter, and gave the last to the Citadel. None for Aerea, none for her twin sister Rhalla. None for the daughters of his eldest brother Prince Aegon, who should have been king.

_He never made me his blood! The monster never made me his daughter. And Rhalla was not with him at all that day._

And yet, why were they both forgotten, set aside, treated as if their blood had been tainted by Maegor the Cruel after all?

* * *

><p><strong>Ormund Baratheon visiting his son Steffon in King's Landing, to see how the boy is adjusting to his new life serving as a royal page.<strong>

"And do you pour wine for His Grace during mealtime?"

"No, Cousin Aerys does that, because he is older and he has been a royal page longer. I hold the bowl of water for Grandfa – I mean, for His Grace to wash his hands in, then Tywin hands him the towel so he can dry his hands, and then –"

"Tywin?"

"Tywin Lannister, Father. I wrote to you and Mother about him, remember?"

"Oh yes, Lord Lannister's son, I remember now."

"He is Cousin Aerys' great friend," Steffon said.

"And is he _your_ friend too, this Tywin?"

Steffon considered his father's question solemnly, brows furrowed with intense concentration. His sweet, solemn boy, away from home for the first time_._ What must be, must be, Ormund knew, but still, his heart ached for his son. His own father would have laughed at that, would have called him a fool indulging in foolish sentiments. The Laughing Storm never had any patience for what he considered any kind of indulgence, despite his well-known sobriquet.

"I think so. Yes, Tywin is my friend," Steffon finally replied. "And not just because he is Cousin Aerys' friend. Tywin is my friend in his own right, because … because ," here he paused, eyes closed, "well, because I like him, and he likes_me_," the boy declared, happy to have found the right reason.

Ormund smiled. "Many enduring friendships have been built on much less," he told his son.

"Are you friends with Tywin's father?" Steffon asked.

"I only know Lord Lannister from meeting him in court," Ormund replied. A somewhat generous but often very misguided man, if kinder tales about Tytos Lannister were to be believed. Crueler tales spoke of him as being a weak and feeble lord, in resolve and judgment if not in bodily strength. Ormund wondered what Lord Lannister's son Tywin was like. He must meet this boy himself, Ormund decided, if Tywin was to be a close friend and companion to Steffon.

Leaning his head closer to his father's, Steffon whispered, "I don't think Tywin misses his home very much. He is _very_ brave. I wish I am brave too, Father."

"You can be brave, and still miss your home," Ormund said.

"I miss Mother very much. I did not write that in the letters because I know it will make her very sad," Steffon confided.

Rhaelle had been very displeased with the idea of sending their son to King's Landing to serve as her father's royal page. "I was sent to a strange place to serve as a cupbearer to a strange lord when I was only a girl scarcely older than Steffon. I know all about the hardship and the misery our son has to look forward to."

"But His Grace is Steffon's own grandfather," Ormund protested. "Your father would not mistreat his own grandson, Rhaelle." Not the way Ormund's father had mistreated Rhaelle, the replacement Targaryen sent to Storm's End to wed his heir, the sacrificial lamb offered to appease Lyonel Baratheon's fury and wounded pride after his daughter was brutally spurned and humiliated by Rhaelle's eldest brother.

"Your mother knows how much you miss her," Ormund told his son.

"I miss you too, Father," Steffon said shyly, looking down at his feet.

Ormund did what he had desperately wanted to do since he first arrived in King's Landing - he took his son into his embrace, wishing that he would not have to let go so quickly.


End file.
